Iffy Books

On Wednesday, October 18th we're hosting a reading and Q&A with Kashmir Hill, author of Your Face Belongs to Us: A Secretive Startup's Quest to End Privacy as We Know It. Doors at 7 p.m., reading starts at 7:30. Hope to see you there! The story of a small AI company that gave facial recognition […]

In North America, we call plants that lived here prior to European colonization Native Plants. They evolved over tens of thousands of years to coexist with the soils, animals, insects, and humans of their specific bioregions. Although much of their habitat, and the cultures of stewardship that tended them over this long time period, have […]

The Model Internet Club meets again on Sunday, October 22nd, 1–5 p.m. Newcomers are welcome. The network is up and running! We now have a DHCP server, a DNS server with custom domain names, and handful of websites running as virtual hosts in Apache. There’s a local bulletin board in the works, and we’re considering our […]

Wednesdays 5–8 p.m. (5–7 p.m. the last Wednesday of the month) Come co-work with other writers in three 40-minute units of silent writing. Writers and projects of any type welcome. 10-minute breaks and accountability check-ins between units. BYO coffee, water, computer chargers, notepads, etc.

On Thursday, October 26th from 6–8 p.m. we’re hosting an intermediate soldering session. We’ll have soldering irons and solder to share for free, as well as DIY electronics kits for sale. Or bring your own project! Register:  

On Sunday, October 29th at 1:30 p.m. we’re hosting an electronics workshop for beginners. No soldering required! We’ll use A Beginner’s Guide to Circuits by Øyvind Nydal Dahl as our guide. This workshop is free to attend, but you’ll need to buy an electronics kit for $12 to complete the projects. The kit contains the parts […]

Wednesdays 5–8 p.m. (5–7 p.m. the last Wednesday of the month) Come co-work with other writers in three 40-minute units of silent writing. Writers and projects of any type welcome. 10-minute breaks and accountability check-ins between units. BYO coffee, water, computer chargers, notepads, etc.

On Friday, November 3rd, 6–9 p.m. we’re hosting a meetup run by the Philadelphia Chapter of the Open Organization of Lockpickers. > Come join us for our monthly First Friday Open Pick Night at Iffy Books! Whether you’re a novice who just stumbled upon LockpickingLawyer, a seasoned safecracker, or somewhere in between, come join us for a evening […]

Our current book for the Neo-Luddite Reading Group is The Human Use of Human Beings by Norbert Wiener (1950, revised 1954). On Tuesday, November 7th we're meeting to discuss chapters 3–7. Meetup link After this book we’ll read Race After Technology by Ruha Benjamin (could maybe pair it with chapters from Artificial Whiteness, unless we […]

Wednesdays 5–8 p.m. (5–7 p.m. the last Wednesday of the month) Come co-work with other writers in three 40-minute units of silent writing. Writers and projects of any type welcome. 10-minute breaks and accountability check-ins between units. BYO coffee, water, computer chargers, notepads, etc.

On Thursday, November 9th at 6:00 p.m. we’re running a soldering workshop for beginners! Anyone can attend for free, but you’ll need to buy a circuit board with components for $6 to complete the project. Here’s what’s included in the kit: 1 x Weevil-shaped PCB 2 x LEDs 1 x 47k Ohm resistor 1 x miniature photocell […]

The Model Internet Club meets again on Saturday, November 11th, 1–5 p.m. Newcomers are welcome. The network is up and running! We now have a DHCP server, a DNS server with custom domain names, and handful of websites running as virtual hosts in Apache. There’s a local bulletin board in the works, and we’re considering our […]

Our next permacomputing meetup is on Sunday, November 12th at 1:00 PM EST. You can join us in person at Iffy Books (319 N. 11th St. #2I, PHL) or via Jitsi Meet. This month we're discussing the talk "An approach to computing and sustainability inspired from permaculture" by Devine Lu Linvega. ➡️ Meetup Link From Permacomputing.net: Permacomputing is a […]

Wednesdays 5–8 p.m. (5–7 p.m. the last Wednesday of the month) Come co-work with other writers in three 40-minute units of silent writing. Writers and projects of any type welcome. 10-minute breaks and accountability check-ins between units. BYO coffee, water, computer chargers, notepads, etc.

Wednesdays 5–8 p.m. (5–7 p.m. the last Wednesday of the month) Come co-work with other writers in three 40-minute units of silent writing. Writers and projects of any type welcome. 10-minute breaks and accountability check-ins between units. BYO coffee, water, computer chargers, notepads, etc.

On Friday, November 24th we'll be open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., which means we're opening and closing a little earlier than usual.

Come co-work with other writers for 40-minute units of silent writing. Writers and projects of any type welcome. 10-minute breaks and accountability check-ins between units. BYO coffee, water, computer chargers, notepads, etc.

On Wednesday, November 29th at 7:00 p.m. we’ll meet to discuss the book The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable (2016) by Amitav Ghosh. Hope to see you there! Get the audiobook on Libro.fm.   Are we deranged? The acclaimed Indian novelist Amitav Ghosh argues that future generations may well think so. How else […]

On Thursday, November 30th we're hosting an event with José Alaniz, author of the new book "Puro Pinche True Fictions" (FlowerSong Press). Author/cartoonist José Alaniz has released a new prose/comics collection titled Puro Pinche True Fictions. The hybrid book collects short stories and comics, mostly set in the Rio Grande Valley along the Texas/Mexico border. […]

This will be the last Philly 2600 meetup at the old Iffy Books location, 319 N. 11th St. #2I. Should be a good one! > The Philly 2600 meeting is a monthly gathering of local hackers, phreaks, nerds, geeks, activists, tinkerers, developers, infosec professionals, and other interesting people. Next week we're moving Iffy Books to […]

On Sunday, December 3rd at 1 p.m. we're hosting a meetup for folks who use federated services like Mastodon, Lemmy, and Pixelfed, as well as anyone who's curious about learning more. Hope to see you there!

We had to cancel this event due to unforeseen circumstances. Sorry for the inconvenience!

Our current book for the Neo-Luddite Reading Group is The Human Use of Human Beings by Norbert Wiener (1950, revised 1954). On Tuesday, December 5th we’re meeting to discuss chapter 8 through the end of the book. Meetup link After this book we’ll read Race After Technology by Ruha Benjamin (could maybe pair it with […]

Iffy Books is moving to a storefront! Very exciting! Starting on Wednesday, December 6th we'll be at 404 S. 20th St., half a block from Rittenhouse Hardware. For the rest of December we'll be open Wednesday–Sunday, 12–7 p.m. See y'all in the new space!

On Saturday, December 9th from 1–3 p.m. we're hosting an informal meetup at Iffy Books for Meshtastic users. Stay tuned for details! Meshtastic: An open source, off-grid, decentralized, mesh network built to run on affordable, low-power devices

Does your kid have a toy that’s so loud it’s driving you up the wall? Are you just curious about electronics and sound? Join us Sunday, December 10th from 1–3 p.m. for a hands-on workshop on how to quiet or silence kids’ electronic toys. Bring an electronic toy to modify and we’ll walk you through […]

On Sunday, December 10th at 3:30 p.m. we’re hosting a darning workshop and mending session. Total beginners welcome! Here's our darning how-to zine. Register:

Come co-work with other writers in three 40-minute units of silent writing. Writers and projects of any type welcome. 10-minute breaks and accountability check-ins between units. BYO coffee, water, computer chargers, notepads, etc.

On Thursday, December 14th at 6:00 p.m. we’re running a soldering workshop for beginners! Anyone can attend for free, but you’ll need to buy a circuit board with components for $6 to complete the project. Here’s what’s included in the kit: 1 x Weevil-shaped PCB 2 x LEDs 1 x 47k Ohm resistor 1 x miniature photocell […]

The Two Decades of subVersion Riot Porn Jamboree Join the subMedia crew this December as we celebrate two decades cranking out anarchist propaganda. That's right, subMedia has finally made it through its angsty teenager years. Before you know it, we'll be setting riot porn to soft jazz! So before that happens and to mark this […]

The Model Internet Club meets again on Saturday, December 16th, 1–5 p.m. Newcomers are welcome. The network is up and running! We now have a DHCP server, a DNS server with custom domain names, and handful of websites running as virtual hosts in Apache. There’s a local bulletin board in the works, and we’re considering our […]

Our next permacomputing meetup is on Sunday, December 17th at 1:00 PM EST. You can join us in person at Iffy Books (404 S. 20th St., PHL) or via Jitsi Meet. ➡️ Meetup Link From Permacomputing.net: Permacomputing is a more sustainable approach to computer and network technology inspired by permaculture. Permacomputing is both a concept and a community of […]